Maresca, Antonio Maria - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII, p. 62

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

MARESCA, ANTONIO MARIA. – Barnabite ascetical writer, born at Carovigno (Brindisi) on 24 November 1831, died in Rome on 26 March 1891. He entered the Order in 1853, was ordained a priest in 1859, and taught in the colleges of his Order at Teramo, Parma, and Bologna. The first director general of the Apostleship of Prayer in Italy, he began publishing the Messaggero del S. Cuore in Parma in 1864 (for two years an adaptation of the French Messagger du S. Coeur), after which it became independent.

In 1887, on the occasion of the priestly jubilee of Leone XIII, M. added Il devoto del S. Cuore to the Messaggero, a monthly review of works concerning and devotion to the Heart of Jesus, as well as Il Rosario vivente, in the form of loose sheets that reached a circulation of 30,000 copies per month.

The institutions of Fr. M. also include the Pious Unions of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the ecclesiastical student house of the Giovani Apostoli del S. Cuore di Gesù for poor vocations in southern Italy (1874), later closed for lack of means; the Association of the 33 Years in honor of Jesus (1879); the fervent movement for the consecration of families and the petition to Pio IX for the consecration of the dioceses of Italy, and then of Rome and the world, to the Heart of Jesus; and the initial work for the construction of the votive church of the Sacred Heart at Castro Pretorio, later continued and completed by the sons of s. Giovanni Bosco. At his death, Fr. M. left his work to his confrere, Fr. Vitale, who

Article illustration — (by courtesy of Fr. G. Stano, O.F.M. Conv.) MAREOTTI, TREBAZIO – Engraving from the eighteenth century.

directed it for another twenty-five years, which were more active and practical; until, in 1917, the general direction of the Apostleship of Prayer and of the Messaggero, discontinuing its publication of Il devoto, was also transferred in Italy to the Jesuits, who still maintain it at their church of the Gesù.

BIBL.: G. Semeria, Ceuni necrologici del p. M., Rome 1891; E. Caspani, I Barnabiti e il S. Cuore, Rome 1922; G. Boffito, Scrittori barnabiti, II, Florence 1933, pp. 418-24; G. Venturini, Nozze di diamante (dell'A. d. P.), Rome 1941 (articles by p. Manzini, pp. 232-40, and by p. Venturini, p. 248 sgs.).